VARNEY, THE VAMPYRE;
                                    OR,
                             THE FEAST OF BLOOD.

                               Chapter XXIII.

THE ADMIRAL'S ADVICE TO CHARLES HOLLAND. -- THE CHALLENGE TO THE VAMPYRE.


     When Charles Holland got his uncle into a room by themselves, he said, --

     "Uncle, you are a seaman, and accustomed to decide upon matters of
honour.  I look upon myself as having been most grievously insulted by this
Sir Francis Varney.  All accounts agree in representing him as a gentleman. 
He goes openly by a title, which, if it were not his, could easily be
contradicted; therefore, on the score of position in life, there is no fault
to find with him.  What would you do if you were insulted by this gentleman?"

     The old admiral's eyes sparkled, and he looked comically in the face of
Charles, as he said, --

     "I know now where you are steering."

     "What would you do, uncle?"

     "Fight him!"

     "I knew you would say so, and that's just what I want to do as regards
Sir Francis Varney."

     "Well, my boy, I don't know that you can do better.  He must be a
thundering rascal, whether he is a vampyre or not; so if you feel that he has
insulted you, fight him by all means, Charles."

     "I am much pleased, uncle, to find that you take my view of the subject,"
said Charles.  "I knew that if I mentioned such a thing to the Bannerworths,
they would endeavour all in their power to persuade me against it."

     "Yes, no doubt; because they are all impressed with a strange fear of
this fellow's vampyre powers.  Besides, if a man is going to fight, the fewer
people he mentions it to the most decidedly the better, Charles."

     "I believe that is the fact, uncle.  Should I overcome Varney, there will
most likely be at once an end to the numerous and uncomfortable perplexities
of the Bannerworths as regards him; and if he overcome me, why, then, at all
events, I shall have made an effort to rescue Flora from the dread of this
man."

     "And then he shall fight me," added the admiral, "so he shall have two
chances, at all events, Charles."

     "Nay, uncle, that would, you know, scarcely be fair. Besides, if I should
fall, I solemnly bequeath Flora Bannerworth to your good offices.  I much fear
that the pecuniary affairs of poor Henry, -- from no fault of his, Heaven
knows, -- are in a very bad state, and that Flora may yet live to want some
kind and able friend."

     "Never fear, Charles.  The young creature shall never want while the old
admiral has got a shot in the locker."

     "Thank you, uncle, thank you.  I have ample cause to know, and to be able
to rely upon your kind and generous nature.  And now about the challenge?"

     "You write it, boy, and I'll take it."

     "Will you second me, uncle?"

     "To be sure I will.  I wouldn't trust anybody else to do so on any
account.  You leave all the arrangements with me, and I'll second you as you
ought to be seconded."

     "Then I will write it at once, for I have received injuries at the hands
of that man, or devil, be he what he may, that I cannot put up with.  His
visit to the chamber of her whom I love would alone constitute ample ground of
action."

     "I should say it rather would, my boy."

     "And after this corroborative story of the wound, I cannot for a moment
doubt that Sir Francis Varney is the vampyre, or the personifier of the
vampyre."

     "That's clear enough, Charles,  Come, just you write your challenge, my
boy, at once, and let me have it."

     "I will, uncle."

     Charles was a little astonished, although pleased, at his uncle's ready
acquiescence in his fighting a vampyre, but that circumstance he ascribed to
the old man's habits of life, which made him so familiar with strife and
personal contentions of all sorts, that he did not ascribe to it that amount
of importance which more peaceable people did.  Had he, while he was writing
the note to Sir Francis Varney, seen the old admiral's face, and the
exceedingly cunning look it wore, he might have suspected that the
acquiescence in the duel was but a seeming acquiescence.  This, however,
escaped him, and in a few moments he read to his uncle the following note: --

     "TO SIR FRANCIS VARNEY.

     "Sir, -- The expressions made use of towards me by you, as well as
general circumstances, which I need not further allude to here, induce me to
demand of you that satisfaction due from one gentleman to another.  My uncle,
Admiral Bell, is the bearer of this note, and will arrange preliminaries with
any friend you may choose to appoint to act in your behalf.  I am, sir, yours,
&c.

                            "CHARLES HOLLAND."

     "Will that do?" said Charles.

     "Capital!" said the admiral.

     "I am glad you like it."

     "Oh, I could not help liking it.  The least said and the most to the
purpose, always pleases me best; and this explains nothing and demands all you
want-- which is a fight; so it's all right, you see, and nothing can possibly
be better."

     Charles did glance in his uncle's face, for he suspected, from the manner
in which these words were uttered, that the old man was amusing himself a
little at his expense.  The admiral, however, looked so supernaturally serious
that Charles was foiled.

     "I repeat, it's a capital letter," he said.

     "Yes, you said so."

     "Well, what are you staring at?"

     "Oh, nothing."

     "Do you doubt my word?"

     "Not at all, uncle; only I thought there was a degree of irony in the
manner in which you spoke."

     "Not at all, my boy.  I never was more serious in all my life."

     "Very good.  Then you will remember that I leave my honour in this affair
completely in your hands."

     "Depend upon me, my boy."

     "I will, and do."

     "I'll be off and see the fellow at once."

     "The admiral bustled out of the room, and in a few moments Charles heard
him calling loudly, --

     "Jack-- Jack Pringle, you lubber, where are you? -- Jack Pringle, I say."

     "Ay, ay, sir," said Jack, emerging from the kitchen, where he had been
making himself generally useful in assisting Mrs. Bannerworth, there being no
servant in the house, to cook some dinner for the family.

     "Come on, you rascal, we are going for a walk."

     "The rations will be served out soon," growled Jack.

     "We shall be back in time, you cormorant, never fear. You are always
thinking of eating and drinking, you are, Jack; and I'll be hanged if I think
you ever think of anything else.  Come on, will you; I'm going on rather a
particular cruise just now, so mind what you are about."

     "Aye, aye, sir," said the tar, and these two originals, who so perfectly
understood each other, walked away, conversing as they went, and their
different voices coming upon the ear of Charles, until distance obliterated
all impression of the sound.

     Charles paced to and fro in the room where he had held this brief and
conclusive conversation with his uncle.  He was thoughtful, as any one might
well be who knew not but that the next four-and-twenty hours would be the
limit of his sojourn in this world.

     "Oh, Flora-- Flora!" he at length said, "how happy we might to have
been! but all is past now, and there seems nothing left us and that is in my
killing this fearful man who is invested with so dreadful an existence.  And
if I do kill him in fair and in open fight, I will take care that his mortal
frame has no power again to revisit the glimpses of the moon."

     It was strange to imagine that such was the force of many concurrent
circumstances, that a young man like Charles Holland, of first-rate abilities
and education, should find it necessary to give in so far to a belief which
was repugnant to all his best feelings and habits of thought, as to be
reasoning with himself upon the best means of preventing the resuscitation of
the corpse of a vampyre. But so it was.  His imagination had yielded to a
succession of events which very few persons indeed could have held out
against.

     "I have heard and read," he said, as he continued his agitated and uneasy
walk, "of how these dreadful beings are to be kept in their graves.  I have
heard of stakes being driven through the body so as to pin it to the earth
until the gradual progress of decay has rendered its revivification a thing of
utter and total impossibility. Then, again," he added, after a slight pause,
"I have heard of their being burned, and the ashes  scattered to the winds of
Heaven to prevent them from ever again uniting or assuming human form."

     These were disagreeable and strange fancies, and he shuddered while he
indulged in them.  He felt a kind of trembling horror come over him even at
the thought of engaging in conflict with a being who, perhaps, had lived more
than a hundred years.

     "That portrait," he thought, "on the panel, is the portrait of a man in
the prime of life.  If it be the portrait of Sir Francis Varney, by the date
which the family ascribe to it he must be nearly one hundred and fifty years
of age now."

     This was a supposition which carried the imagination to a vast amount of
strange conjectures.

     "What changes he must have witnessed about him in that time," thought
Charles.  "How he must have seen kingdoms totter and fall, and how many
changes of habits, of manners, and of custom must he have become a spectator
of.  Renewing too, ever and anon, his fearful existence by such fearful
means."

     This was a wide field of conjecture for a fertile imagination, and now
that he was on the eve of engaging with such a being in mortal combat, on
behalf of her he loved, the thoughts it gave rise to came more strongly and
thickly upon him than ever they had done before.

     "But I will fight him,"  he suddenly said, "for Flora's sake, were he a
hundred times more hideous a being than so many evidences tend to prove him. 
I will fight with him, and it may be my fate to rid the world of such a
monster in human form."

     Charles worked himself up to a kind of enthusiasm by which he almost
succeeded in convincing himself that, in attempting the destruction of Sir
Francis Varney, he was the champion of human nature.

     It would be aside from the object of these pages, which is to record
facts as they occurred, to enter into the metaphysical course of reasoning
which came across Charles's mind; suffice it to say that he felt nothing
shaken as regarded his resolve to meet Varney the Vampyre, and that he made up
his mind the conflict should be one of life or death.

     "It must be so," he said.  "It must be so.  Either he or I must fall in
the fight which shall surely be."

     He now sought Flora, for how soon might he now be torn from her for ever
by the irresistible hand of death.  He felt that, during the few brief hours
which now would only elapse previous to his meeting with Sir Francis Varney,
he could not enjoy too much of the society of her who reigned supreme in his
heart, and held in her own keeping his best affections.

     But while Charles is thus employed, let us follow his uncle and Jack
Pringle to the residence of Varney, which, as the reader is aware, was so near
at hand that it required not many minutes' sharp walking to reach it.

     The admiral knew well he could trust Jack with any secret, for long
habits of discipline and deference to the orders of superiors takes off the
propensity to blabbering which, among civilians who are not accustomed to
discipline, is so very prevalent.  The old man therefore explained to Jack
what he meant to do, and it received Jack's full approval; but as in the
enforced detail of other matters it must come out, we will not here
prematurely enter into the admiral's plans.

     When they reached the residence of Sir Francis Varney, they were received
courteously enough, and the admiral desired Jack to wait for him the handsome
hall of the house, while he was shewn up stairs to the private room of the
vampyre.

     "Confound the fellow!" muttered the old admiral, "he is well lodged at
all events.  I should say he was not one of those vampyres who have nowhere to
go to but their own coffins when the evening comes."

     The room into which the admiral was shewn had green blinds to it, and
they were all drawn down.  It is true that the sun was shining brightly
outside, although transiently, but still a strange green tinge was thrown over
everything in the room, and more particularly did it appear to fall upon the
face of Varney, converting his usually sallow countenance into a still more
hideous and strange colour. He was sitting upon a couch, and, when the admiral
came in, he rose, and said, in a deep-toned voice, extremely different to that
he usually spoke in, --

     "My humble home is much honoured, sir, by your presence in it."

     "Good morning," said the admiral.  "I have come to speak to you, sir,
rather seriously."

     "However abrupt this announcement may sound to me," said Varney, "I am
quite sure I shall always hear, with the most profound respect, whatever
Admiral Bell may have to say."

     "There is no respect required," said the admiral, "but only a little
attention."

     Sir Francis bowed in a stately manner, saying, --

     "I shall be quite unhappy if you will not be seated, Admiral Bell."

     "Oh, never mind that, Sir Francis Varney, if you be Sir Francis Varney;
for you may be the devil himself, for all I know.  My nephew, Charles Holland,
considers that, one way and another, he has a very tolerable quarrel with
you."

     "I much grieve to hear it."

     "Do you?"

     "Believe me, I do.  I am most scrupulous in what I say; and an assertion
that I am grieved, you may thoroughly and entirely depend upon."

     "Well, well, never mind that; Charles Holland is a young man just
entering into life.  He loves a girl who is, I think, every way worthy of
him."

     "Oh, what a felicitous prospect!"

     "Just hear me out, if you please."

     "With pleasure, sir-- with pleasure."

     "Well, then, when a young, hot-headed fellow thinks he has a good ground
of quarrel with anybody, you will not be surprised at his wanting to fight it
out."

     "Not at all."

     "Well, then, to come to the point, my nephew, Charles Holland, has a
fancy for fighting with you."

     "Ah!"

     "You take it d----d easy."

     "My dear sir, why should I be uneasy?  He is not my nephew, you know.  I
shall have no particular cause, beyond those feelings of common compassion
which I hope inhabit my breast as well as every one else's."

     "What do you mean?"

     "Why, he is a young man just, as you say, entering into life, and I
cannot help thinking it would be a pity to cut him off like a flower in the
bud, so very soon."

     "Oh, you make quite sure, then, of settling him, do you?"

     "My dear sir, only consider; he might be very troublesome, indeed; you
know young men are hot-headed and troublesome.  Even if I were only to maim
him, he might be a continual and never-ceasing annoyance to me.  I think I
should be absolutely, in a manner of speaking, compelled to cut him off."

     "The devil you do!"

     "As you say, sir."

     "D--n your assurance, Mr. Vampyre, or whatever odd fish you may be."

     "Admiral Bell, I never called upon you and received a courteous
reception, and then insulted you."

     "Then why do you talk of cutting off a better man than yourself?  D--n
it, what would you say to him cutting you off?"

     "Oh, as for me, my good sir, that's quite another thing.  Cutting me off
is very doubtful."

     Sir Francis Varney gave a strange smile as he spoke, and shook his head,
as if some most extraordinary and extravagant proposition had been mooted,
which it was scarcely worth the while of anybody possessed of common sense to
set about expecting.

     Admiral Bell felt strongly inclined to get into a rage, but he repressed
the idea as much as he could, although, but for the curious faint green light
that came through the blinds, his heightened colour would have sufficiently
proclaimed what state of mind he was in.

     "Mr. Varney," he said, "all this is quite beside the question; but at all
events, if it have any weight at all, it could to have a considerable
influence in deciding you to accept the terms I propose."

     "What are they, sir?"

     "Why, that you permit me to espouse my nephew Charles's quarrel, and meet
you instead of him."

     "You meet me?"

     "Yes; I've met a better man more than once before.  It can make no
difference to you."

     "I don't know that, Admiral Bell.  One generally likes, in a duel, to
face him with whom one has had the misunderstanding, be it on what grounds it
may."

     "There's some reason, I know, in what you say; but, surely, if I am
willing, you need not object."

     "And is your nephew willing thus to shift the danger and the job of
resenting his own quarrels on to your shoulders?"

     "No; he knows nothing about it.  He has written you a challenge, of which
I am the bearer, but I voluntarily, and of my own accord, wish to meet you
instead."

     "This is a strange mode of proceeding."

     "If you will not accede to it, and fight him first, and any harm comes to
him, you shall fight me afterwards."

     "Indeed."

     "Yes, indeed you shall, however surprised you may look."

     "As this appears to be a family affair, then," said Sir Francis Varney,
"it certainly does appear immaterial which of you I fight with first."

     "Quite so; now you take a sensible view of the question.  Will you meet
me?"

     "I have no particular objection.  Have you settled all your affairs, and
made your will?"

     "What's that to you?"

     "Oh, I only asked, because there is generally so much food for litigation
if a man dies intestate, and is worth any money."

     "You make devilish sure," said the admiral, "of being the victor.  Have
you made your will?"

     "Oh, my will," smiled Sir Francis; "that, my good sir, is quite an
indifferent affair."

     "Well, make it or not, as you like.  I am old, I know, but I can pull a
trigger as well as any one."

     "Do what?"

     "Pull a trigger."

     "Why, you don't suppose I resort to any such barbarous modes of
fighting?"

     "Barbarous!  Why, how do you fight then?"

     "As a gentleman, with my sword."

     "Swords!  Oh, nonsense! nobody fights with swords now-a-days.  That's all
exploded."

     "I cling to the customs and the fashions of my youth," said Varney.  "I
have been, years ago, accustomed always to wear a sword, and to be without one
now vexes me."

     "Pray, how many years ago?"

     "I am older than I look, but that is not the question. I am willing to
meet you with swords if you like.  You are no doubt aware that, as the
challenged party, I am entitled to the choice of weapons."

     "I am."

     "Then you cannot object to my availing myself of the one in the use of
which I am perfectly unequalled."

     "Indeed."

     "Yes, I am, I think, the first swordsman in Europe; I have had immense
practice."

     "Well, sir, you have certainly made a most unexpected choice of weapons. 
I can use a sword still, but am by no means I master of fencing.  However, it
shall not be said that I went back from my word, and let the chances be as
desperate as they may, I will meet you."

     "Very good."

     "With swords?"

     "Ay, with swords; but I must have everything properly arranged, so that
no blame can rest on me, you know.  As you will be killed, you are safe from
all consequences, but I shall be in a very different position; so, if you
please, I must have this meeting got up in such a manner as shall enable me to
prove, to whoever may question me on the subject, that you had fair play."

     "Oh, never fear that."

     "But I do fear it.  The world, my good sir, is censorious, and you cannot
stop people from saying extremely ill-natured things."

     "What is it that you require, then?"

     "I require that you send me a friend with a formal challenge."

     "Well?"

     "Then I shall refer him to a friend of mine, and they two must settle
everything between them."

     "Is that all?"

     "Not quite.  I will have a surgeon on the ground, in case, when I pink
you, there should be a chance of saving your life.  It always looks humane."

     "When you pink me?"

     "Precisely."

     "Upon my word, you take these affairs easy.  I suppose you have had a few
of them?"

     "Oh, a good number.  People like yourself worry me into them.  I don't
like the trouble, I assure you; it is no amusement to me.  I would rather, by
a great deal, make some concession than fight, because I will fight with
swords, and the result is then so certain that there is no danger in the
matter to me."

     "Hark you, Sir Francis Varney.  You are either a very clever actor, or a
man, as you say, of such skill with your sword, that you can make sure of the
result of a duel.  You know, therefore, that it is not fair play on your part
to fight a duel with that weapon."

     "Oh, I beg your pardon there.  I never challenge anybody, and when
foolish people call me out, contrary to my inclination, I think I am bound to
take what care of myself I can."

     "D--n me, there's some reason in that, too," said the admiral; "but why
do you insult people?"

     "People insult me first."

     "Oh, nonsense!"

     "How should you like to be called a vampyre, and stared at as if you were
some hideous natural phenomenon?"

     "Well, but-- "

     "I say, Admiral Bell, how should you like it?  I am a harmless country
gentleman, and because, in the heated imagination of some member of a
crack-brained family, some housebreaker has been converted into a vampyre, I
am to be pitched upon as the man, and insulted and persecuted accordingly."

     "But you forget the proofs."

     "What proofs?"

     "The portrait, for one."

     "What!  Because there is an accidental likeness between me and an old
picture, am I to be set down as a vampyre? Why, when I was in Austria last, I
saw an old portrait of a celebrated court fool, and you so strongly resemble
it, that I was quite struck when I first saw you with the likeness; but I was
not so unpolite as to tell you that I considered you were the court fool
turned vampyre."

     "D--n your assurance!"

     "And d--n yours, if you come to that."

     The admiral was fairly beaten.  Sir Francis Varney was by far too
long-headed and witty for him.  After now in vain endeavouring to find
something to say, the old man buttoned up his coat in a great passion, and
looking fiercely at Varney, he said, --

     "I don't pretend to a gift of the gab.  D--n me, it ain't one of my
peculiarities; but though you may talk me down, you sha'n't keep me down."

     "Very good, sir."

     "It is not very good.  You shall hear from me."

     "I am willing."

     "I don't care whether you are willing or not.  You shall find that when
once I begin to tackle an enemy, I don't so easily leave him.  One or both of
us, sir, is sure to sink."

     "Agreed."

     "So say I.  You shall find that I'm a tar for all weathers, and if you
were hundred and fifty vampyres all rolled into one, I'd tackle you somehow."

     The admiral walked to the door in high dudgeon; when he was near to it,
Varney said, in some of his most winning and gentle accents, --

     "Will you not take some refreshment, sir, before you go from my humble
house?"

     "No!" roared the admiral.

     "Something cooling?"

     "No!"

     "Very good, sir.  A hospitable host can do no more that offer to
entertain his guests."

     Admiral Bell turned at the door, and said, with some degree of intense
bitterness, "You look rather poorly.  I suppose, tonight, you will go and suck
somebody's blood, you shark-- you confounded vampyre!  You ought to be made to
swallow a red-hot brick, and then let dance about till it digests."

     Varney smiled as he rang the bell, and said to a servant, --

     "Show my very excellent friend Admiral Bell out.  He will not take any
refreshments."

     The servant bowed, and preceded the admiral down the staircase; but, to
his great surprise, instead of a compliment in the shape of a shilling or
half-a-crown for his pains, he received a tremendous kick behind, with a
request to go and take it to his master, with his compliments.

     The fume that the old admiral was in beggars all description.  He walked
to Bannerworth Hall at such a rapid pace, that Jack Pringle had the greatest
difficulty in the world to keep up with him, so as to be at all within
speaking distance.

     "Hilloa, Jack," cried the old man, when they were close to the Hall. 
"Did you see me kick that fellow?"

     "Ay, ay, sir."

     "Well, that's some consolation, at any rate, if somebody saw it.  It
ought to have been his master, that's all I can say to it, and I wish it had."

     "How have you settled it, sir?"

     "Settled what?"

     "The fight, sir."

     "D--n me, Jack, I haven't settled it at all."

     "That's bad, sir."

     "I know it is; but it shall be settled for all that, I can tell him, let
him vapour as much as he may about pinking me, and one thing and another."

     "Pinking you, sir?"

     "Yes.  He wants to fight with cutlasses, or toasting-forks, d--n me, I
don't know exactly which, and then he must have a surgeon on the ground, for
fear when he pinks me I shouldn't slip my cable in a regular way, and he
should be blamed."

     Jack gave a long whistle, as he replied, --

     "Going to do it, sir?"

     "I don't know what I'm going to do.  Mind, Jack, mum's the word."

     "Ay, ay, sir."

     "I'll turn the matter over in my mind, and then decide upon what had best
be done.  If he pinks me, I'll take d----d good care he don't pink Charles."

     "No, sir, don't let him do that.  A _wamphigher_, sir, ain't no good
opponent to anybody.  I never seed one afore, but it strikes me as the best
way to settle him, would be to shut him up in some little bit of a cabin, and
then smoke him with brimstone, sir."

     "Well, well, I'll consider, Jack, I'll consider. Something must be done,
and that quickly too.  Zounds, here's Charles-- what the deuce shall I say to
him, by way of an excuse, I wonder, for not arranging his affair with Varney? 
Hang me, if I ain't taken aback now, and don't know where to place a hand."

                                     -+-


 Next Time: The Letter to Charles. -- The Quarrel. -- The Admiral's Narrative.
 -- The Midnight Meeting.

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The Varney Project                Chapter  23             Ver 1.00  02/20/1996
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